Soldering is a really useful, highly applicable skill. And its not that hard with practice. When my brother "didn't see" my ******* wheel and pedal setup plugged into the PS3 and ripped that bitch a new one I spent an hour permanantly soldering the pedal wires into the wheel. Same for the old wore out controller connection on my PS2.

Soldering is a really useful, highly applicable skill. And its not that hard with practice. When my brother "didn't see" my ******* wheel and pedal setup plugged into the PS3 and ripped that bitch a new one I spent an hour permanantly soldering the pedal wires into the wheel. Same for the old wore out controller connection on my PS2.

So question Experts of Electronics. What size and type of solder do you use?

I purchased a 60/40 Rosin Core .061" by Alpha Fry from Amazon. I think it's too big and feel the .20" or .31" would be a better choice. I'm wondering what your opinion is as well as where you purchase your solder. I found 63/37 Kester .031" but it's a 1 lb spool for $40 shipped. I think that would be enough solder for life!

It's mostly preference, I like most prefer a thinner solder for most jobs (.032) but there are some out there who like the thick stuff.

Composition of the solder will boil down to a few things like what you are soldering and how durable the joint needs to be. As a hobbyist though, I recommend a nice rounded solder that will work well for all sorts of applications. A fairly new hobby electronics company has been getting pretty big called sparkfun. There are better retailers out as well so feel free to look around.

In my opinion the thing any beginner should be worried about when getting into soldering is having a decent enough iron to get the job done. Throw those 15watt radioshack pencil irons in the trash. A nice entry level soldering station is only $50-$100.

In all seriousness, though, welcome aboard, Adam. It's always a great feeling when something works.

I've been working on a new project myself. Here's a sneak peek:

LOL nice sneak peak there, I may just have enough info now to steal your design . The scope is a Chinese brand Rogol DS1052E 50MHz entry level model. I purchased it due to its ability to easily be hacked into a 100MHz model with a terminal window and a serial cable.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by flying_solo

What size and type of solder do you use?

Copied and pasted from my diatribe on solder in DIY's "kit" thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Perez

Now, I will differ slightly on the matter of solder. Silver-bearing solder, and especially the lead-free variety, just isn't as good as the old stuff. The absolute best solder for general-purpose electronics work is what's known simply as 63/37 (63% tin, 37% lead).

Why is this? Because it's idiot-proof. 63/37 has the lowest melting point of all solder alloys, and more importantly, it has virtually no plastic range. Most solder alloys go through a gradual phase change from liquid to solid as they cool, and so there's a point where, if you move the parts at all, you wind up with a crappy, crystalline-looking joint which is likely to break. 63/37 is unique in that it transitions from a liquid to a solid almost in a single step, so the chance of producing a bad joint is reduced.

60/40 is the more traditional blend for electronics work, and it's fine, too. Still has a low melting point, you just have to be more careful with it as it solidifies.

Diameter-wise? .062" seems to still be the most common, and this was fine back in the days of tabbbed point-to-point wiring inside console radios (eg: the 60s.) For delicate stuff, you want something in the vicinity of .020" to .032". You have to feed a lot more of it in to cover large joints (like the legs of TO220 FETs) however it makes things a lot easier on small parts, especially those damn TO-92 transistor pads on the 3.0 board. (I don't know why they designed the pads that way. TO-92s are a lot easier to solder when the pads are spaced out in a triangular shape.)

Location: Chicago (Over two miles from Wrigley Field. Fuck the Cubs. Fuck them in their smarmy goat-hole.)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Braineack

see joes post above about 60/40 .032" radio shackness.

I waffle back and forth on this.

.032 is fine for through-hole parts. At the lab, we have .020 and .015 at the surface-mount bench, and while those are great for small parts, they're slightly tedious for use with big stuff as you have to feed a lot more of it in.